{Post 1,060} Northern Comfort Completely Finished

...and finished is GOOD!!

Size-wise, this covers the top of the mattress on my queen-sized bed. 

~Joan

{Post 1,059} Northern Comfort Border Quilting

Here are some shots from the back on my Northern Comfort quilt.  I did not practice the swirls, but from the front--seriously, they're nearly invisible.  I am giving this to our new pastor and his wife soon.  It's been bound and it in the washer right now.  More pictures of the whole thing later this afternoon.

I used black thread in the bobbin because I hate it when there are dots of the OTHER color of thread on the front or back when the tension is not perfect.  Even when it starts out being perfect, as one sews, it changes at times.  So I saved myself the horror of seeing spots.

~Joan

{Post 1,058} Northern Comfort Well Under Way

The Northern Comfort quilt is nearly finished.  I ordered some channel locks for my HandiQuilter and hope they get here soon.  I might wait for them and do a straight line about 1-1/2" apart in the outer border.  I'd like to master a twirl design, too.  The border fabric is busy, so that would be a good place to practice.

Here is the stencil I stitched in the tan blocks and my Quilt Pounce, which is great for marking the stencils on a quilt already on the machine.  The things on the left are the tension clamps.  So very handy!

I learn something new each time I use the HandiQuilter.  Since I was leaving the outside border for last, I thought I'd just baste around the whole edge of the quilt.  Well, that failed, and I ended up having to rip it all out.  It wasn't terribly difficult or time-consuming, but I thought that would make it easier and was disappointed.

But, all's well that ends well.  I will probably practice the twirl design on my dry erase board tomorrow and quilt the black border with that.  The fabric is busy enough to hide boo boos, and I'll do the spaced lines some other time.

~Joan

  

{Post 1,057} Calendar Quilt

I had another apprentice over tonight.  Amber helps my husband and I teach 2- and 3-year-olds in our church Sunday school program.  She is a single college student who lives about 15 minutes away.  I told her she could invite herself over any time and suggested Tuesdays as a good day for me.  So she invited herself over tonight (that only took 2 days to happen!).  We were texting the past couple days, and I asked her if she'd be interested in learning how to piece and quilt.  She said YES!! 

So tonight she picked out a pattern for a table runner (which is a great size to start and FINISH for a first project).  She got all the pieces cut out and pieced most of the blocks.  It is a relatively simple pattern, but she is soooo excited to be making it!  In the excitement of the session, I neglected to take any pictures.  Maybe next time!

I also mostly finished the September month by month quilt. I relinquished my sewing machine to Amber when she arrived.  Another 10 minutes, and I would have had it completely finished.  Here it is so far:

I just need to zigzag around the "T" and the swirl on the apple.  Cute!

~Joan

{Post 1,056} Green Hexagons

Here is a little runner I whipped up tonight.  The "try this new technique" bug bit after I saw the cover quilt on the newest Quilt Sampler.  Since I just hand-pieced a hexagon quilt, I was interested to see "how" it was done by machine. 

As I perused the magazine, I saw that the template for the hexagon measured 6" across!!!!!  I use such small pieces (often finished 1" squares or 1-1/2" HST) that those looked like dinner plates to me!  I still wanted to give it a whirl, but didn't want to cut out the hexagons.  

Way back when I first started selling on eBay I made an acquaintance with a man who was making plexiglass extension tables for sewing machines to enlarge the machine quilting area.  He got a lot of info from me as we emailed back and forth.  I suggested that since he had the tools for cutting the lucite/plexiglass stuff that he make some quilting templates.  So, to make a long story short if it isn't too late already, he made me a couple sets of hexagons and accompanying triangles for I spy type quilts.

I looked in my I spy stash drawer, and lo, and behold, there they were!!  I had a gigantic one and the one I used for the runner, which measures 4" from flat side to flat side.

I have quilted it and have the binding sewn to the front.  I just may finish the binding tomorrow, and then I'll show you a pic from the front.  Turns out that this method is soooo easy to do!  I would like to make a bed-sized quilt or a large throw down the road with the larger template that I have.  this was enough to show me that I would like it.  I quilted 6-petaled flowers on it.  Susie said they looked like sand dollars.  And they do!

~Joan, who was the surprised recipient of these (my favorite flower) tonight when my Susie got home from work.

{Post 1,055} Rachel's Money Bag

My Rachel goes to a flea market on Fridays and Saturdays.  She has "meals on wheels", a large wire mesh garden wagon.   She loads it with food and drinks then walks around to sell to the other vendors.  She sells various types of muffins, brownies, ham biscuits, sausage biscuits, soft drinks, bottled water, coffee, hot chocolate, etc.  She has quite a rapport with the vendors, and they appreciate her service.  One small problem has been finding a way to handle her money (lots of small bills).  She thought of using a money clip--a metal thing to slide across her wad of bills.  We were discussing it while we stood in front of the teller at our bank.  The teller said, "why don't you just make her one?"  This is the result of my effort:

I used this tutorial for a starter idea and made it much smaller.  

http://www.noodle-head.com/2012/06/open-wide-zippered-pouch-diy-tutorial.html

I did use the iron-on interfacing.  I let her pick the fabrics, so I knew she would like them!  I boxed the bottom corners by only sewing 3/4" in from the point.  Not much, but enough to make it better than my original flat one (this is the second one I made...first failed!).

~Joan

{Post 1,054} Veins and Tendrils

Last post on this for tonight.  I am tired.  Like dog tired.  So is my husband.  I slept 14 hours the other night.  Feel like I could do it again tonight!  Machine quilting wears me out, so I try to do it in small bites.  Since I did two continuous borders on this quilt and changed thread colors, I had a lot of unrolling and rerolling on this quilt.

I ended up using a polyester orange thread that matched my orange Thimbleberries pumpkins nearly perfectly.  One of those "did I already quilt there" matches.  Here is a picture, but the quilting is hard to see.

Now for the veins and tendrils.  I will start out far and let you move closer:

You can see the meandering some in the last two pictures.  I also quilted a star in the stem of the pumpkin.  I double sewed the tendrils, purposely stitching a little to the side.  I could only last for 6 pumpkins.  More tomorrow!

~Joan